Inspiration and Dark Obsession
by TVH Bookfan
Summary: In the 1960s, Elizabeth Bennet is a rebellious young woman trying to find what she wants out of life, and William Darcy is a popular artist/filmmaker with many secrets. When the two start to work together, they each think they've found what they needed, but their inner demons soon bring out their worst sides, inspiring two young people in the 2010s with similar situations.
1. Chapter 1

**Here's the new story I promised you all! **

**Some important background information on this story:**

**It takes place in the 1960s and the 2010s**

**William Darcy is supposed to be based off an important artist from the 1960s. It may be obvious for some of you, but if you have any questions on this or some of the real life stuff which inspired him and this story, please feel free to ask.**

**Even though this story also takes place around the present, nothing is given away about the fate of Elizabeth and Darcy until the end. Also, the kind of relationship they have in this story is very complex, not the usual one based on just love and judgment. I hope you enjoy this!**

1966, New Jersey: What did they understand? Thought Elizabeth as she stepped onto that train. Who were they to tell her how to live her life? It's not as if her parents actually accomplished something that would make her want to live in the suburbs for the rest of her life. Her father was just a simple hardware store owner who sat around in the living room each night with a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and the television turned on to some stupid sitcom. Her mother spend her days dreaming up the day her four lovely daughters would get married and live in those fancy houses at the wealthy part of town as well as reading every issue of _Good Housekeeping_ magazine. As for her sisters, they were just like every girl in town. Jane, her older sister, was her favorite, as she was the most sensitive and loving person in the family as far as Elizabeth was concerned. The twins, Katie and Lydia, however, had no distinct personalities at all. Both loved the Beatles, the diners where all the cool guys hung out, _Seventeen _magazine, and dreaming up their proms, which weren't going to take place for another two years.

So what was she going to do? Run off to New York, of course. She would have taken a plane to California if she'd had the money, since that was where most of the action was, but New York was the most realistic option, so she just had to do with that. "Where will you study or work?" her father had asked. She'd said she would take a job as a waitress or a typist, but that was far from the truth. The letter she had gotten back from William Darcy determined it all:

She was going to be an underground film star.

New York City: His walls were filled with his paintings, ranging from simple pictures of flowers, Coca Cola bottles, and chocolate bars to portraits of JFK, Queen Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Taylor. It had taken ten years, but it seemed like William Darcy was finally becoming somebody important in the cultural world. Not bad for a boy who became an orphan at the age of six and had to be raised by his old fashioned Czech aunt along with his little sister, Georgiana, who had no memories of having parents. Not bad for someone who had to work twice as hard as everyone else in school because of lack of a caretaker who had knowledge of American education and culture. Not bad for a man who spend every minute of his life ashamed of his sexuality.

It wasn't that he was only attracted to men or that this attraction was strong enough to take over his life, as it had with some of the people he made films about. He thought he had some feelings for women, but it wasn't the same as it was with other men. When watching a film at the cinema, his eyes weren't just on the lovely Liz Taylor or Audrey Hepburn, but also on Richard Burton or Gregory Peck. When going out for the night, he couldn't help but really notice all those well-dressed men along with their wives or lovers. Did these men ever feel the same way as he did, or did they always just think about their beloved woman?

For now, he had nothing to worry about. He had plenty of money, well-sold paintings, and a lot of young people willing to take part in his experimental films. He was happy, Georgiana was happy, and even his aunt seemed happy. He went by a different name now, which made him feel as if he could finally leave his former troubled past self behind. But if anyone ever found out about this one secret, he knew it would all be over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you all so much for your feedback :) I may not be able to update every day, but I'll do it as often as possible, since it seems like so many of you want more.**

When Elizabeth Bennet walked through the door of that famous studio she'd heard so much about, she was greeted by a young woman who looked to be in her early twenties who had a dark brown bob and a white summer dress with flowers printed in it. She smiled as Elizabeth entered, then they shook hands and she said in a friendly tone, "You must be Elizabeth Bennet! Will may have not met you yet, but he's already talking about how much he's looking forward to finally seeing you. I'm Georgiana, William Darcy's sister."

Elizabeth looked her over. She looked a little bit like her twin sisters, but there seemed to be something about her personality that reminded her more of Jane, which she would prefer if she was going to be seeing a lot of her. She wanted her new home to remind her as little of the suburbs as possible, but some reminders of home would be nice as well.

From another room, a voice called out, "Is that her, Gigi?" The voice was a little high-pitched, and it was almost hard to tell if it was masculine or feminine, although Elizabeth knew it came from a man. When Georgiana called back, her brother responded by saying, "I'll be there in a minute!"

Georgiana laughed charmingly. "Dosen't he already sound just amazing? He likes calling me Gigi after that movie that won the Oscar a couple years ago. If you become friends with him, he'll really be there for you all the time. He even does some things with me that other men wouldn't even give a second thought to, like shopping and watching romance movies. Once, he even helped me try on makeup. But the weird thing is, he never dates. Not in high school, college, or even now that he's so famous. I've tried setting him up with some of my friends, but he always says…"

"Gigi, you don't have to give Ms. Bennet every detail about me. That will be my job." Standing right next to her was the famous William Darcy. Elizabeth had only seen a few pictures of him (his own paintings were shown more often on magazines than the artist himself), but now that she saw him, she wasn't disappointed. His features showed a satisfying reflection of youth without being as strikingly handsome as those of movie stars. Like his sister, he had dark brown hair, but he also had one of the nicest blue eyes that Elizabeth had ever seen, and she decided that they were his best feature. As for his clothes (a short-sleeved red shirt that looked homemade and blue jeans), they gave the impression that he cared for his appearance without wearing all those formal and expensive clothes worn by other influential men of that era. "Hello there, Ms. Bennet. As you must already know, I'm William Darcy, and I see that you already had the pleasure of meeting my lovely sister," he said in a tone that was friendly but showed signs of a more introverted personality.

"If you want to, I could show Ms. Bennet to her room…"

"That won't be necessary, Gigi. I wanted to talk to her for a while before _I_ take her to her room. You're not supposed to be my assistant."

"I know that, Will. Maybe I actually _like_ helping you," Georgiana responded as she walked out of the studio. With a smile, Darcy then said, "Now we may go into my office in peace."

This office was nothing like the ones in New Jersey. Almost every painting of his that Elizabeth had ever seen was in there, including her favorite of the one displaying the stages of a Hershey Bar, from the time it's unopened, to the moment the wrapping is taken off, to each remaining square of chocolate. Her other favorite was called "Our Ladies" and showed every American First Lady dressed as a modern movie star. There were also shelves that were completely filled with books in the corners where there were no paintings. Darcy's desk was next to the window, and it was actually painted with a pattern of water colors.

"The desk looks pretty creative," Elizabeth joked as Darcy took out a chair for her, which was also in the same design pattern as his desk.

"I'm an artist, Ms. Bennet. Everything has to be colorful for me." Before he sat down, he put on a record, and soon the relaxing and romantic beat of "Theme From Summer's Place" filled the room.

"I love this music," Elizabeth said with a sigh. "Reminds me of my childhood, boring as it was."

"How can the suburbs be boring? If you had grown up in the lower east side of New York with an old-fashioned immigrant aunt, you would have probably looked at it differently."

Elizabeth tried to imagine this worldly man and his sister in the bad parts of the city. With Georgiana, this seemed impossible, but for some reason, she could imagine William Darcy growing up pretty much anywhere. He looked like someone who could blend into pretty much any environment, from the luxurious Manhattan to those small desert towns she saw on TV. It was almost hard to place him into a specific social class, since his style and behavior seemed to be a combination of that of all Americans she had ever met.

"What about your parents?" she asked, and immediately regretted it. For a while, Darcy honestly looked sad, almost as if he were going to cry. But before she tried to dismiss what had obviously been a painful question, he said in a somber tone, "My mother committed suicide when I was six. She threw herself into the middle of the road and got hit by a bus. My father tried to save her, but they both ended up dying almost instantly. I saw the whole thing, and it has haunted me almost my whole life. Georgiana was only one, and I'd held her in my arms as our parents died."

"Oh, my God. I'm so sorry I had to make you talk about this," she said. What must he be thinking about her, she thought. How many other people tried to ask him such personal questions that resulted in him getting uncomfortable?

"It's okay. I've never talked about this at interviews before, but finally telling someone seems to make me feel better for some reason. I rarely open up about my personal life with strangers at all, as a matter of fact."

"I don't blame you for that," Elizabeth responded.

"Anyway, enough about me. Tell me more about yourself." And with that, William Darcy's tragic past was put behind for a while, but it would not be the last time Elizabeth Bennet would hear about it.


	3. Chapter 3

So far, all seemed to go well with Elizabeth Bennet. As far as he knew, she didn't live the wild lifestyle that most of his other "students", as he liked to call the young people he worked with, had. She'd had a typical suburban childhood with her three sisters, had been quite popular in high school, saying , "I had about twenty other girls sitting in my lunch table, but I only ever spend time outside of school with about nine or eight of them," and was constantly desired by boys, but she was always very choosy about who she dated. "You wouldn't believe how stupid high school boys can be. Some of them couldn't even remember seeing me in their class! Another guy I went out with couldn't even remember my last name and kept calling me by the last names of famous people by the name of Elizabeth, like Taylor or Montgomery."

William had laughed when she said the latter remark, and said, "You should have taken that as a complement. With your beautiful appearance, no wonder a boy would have called you Elizabeth Taylor."

"Or maybe he was fantasizing about her to make the time he spend with me less unbearable! Have you thought about that?" She asked with a playfully stern tone.

"Why, aren't you such a clever girl? Can you ever take a complement?"

"Only if I take a good look at the person saying it and can see through their expressions that they truly mean it."

"If you look at me right now, can you tell that I only speak the truth?"

Elizabeth had stared at him for exactly a minute, then said with a playful smile, "Yes. It seems to me that I can trust you."

This talk had William wishing he had been such as self- confident at the age of eighteen as Elizabeth was. Socially, his high school experience had been a disaster. He had attended a Roman Catholic High School which his aunt had placed him in with the hopes that with his intelligence and talent, that type of education would help him prepare to be successful as an adult, which she didn't think was possible at the public high school. Academically, he did all right for the most part, getting good grades in everything except for the math (with the exception of geometry) and science classes, and the sisters that taught classes actually liked him despite the fact that he wasn't a Roman Catholic (he belonged to one of the Orthodox Christian sects), and the mother superior even arranged for a priest from his church to teach him religious classes instead of taking the ones required for all the rest of the students. However, among the other students, he was an outcast for many reasons, including the fact that he was poor, had no parents, didn't take the same religious classes as everyone else, had a rather quite nature not typical of most boys, but most of all, because of how he seemed to be a favorite among the sisters despite all these things. It was mostly among the boys, who would always shout insults at him when the sisters left the classrooms or as he was walking in the hallways. However, the worse incidents occurred when the sisters punished them for bullying him, which resulted in them stealing his things and on one occasion, beating him up as he was walking home from school. The girls usually just avoided him, but a few became his friends, mostly the shy ones who were bullied by the more popular girls. However, all he said to Elizabeth when she asked him if he was popular was, "I was different, and some of the kids just didn't understand me."

"That's fine with me. You seem like someone who was too cool for high school."

"Why, thank you, Ms. Bennet. It seems nice that someone as pretty and likeable as you would have taken pity on a freak like me."

"I don't think you're a freak, William Darcy."

"That's because you don't know me that well." And hopefully, he thought to himself, she would never find out the most unpleasant details about him.

After that conversation, he'd escorted her to her room. Luckily, one of the unused rooms in his studio was one of the best, with walls the color of velvet, a large mirror along with a luxurious, walk-in closet, a canopy bed, and a small balcony you could walk into with a very good view of New York.

"William Darcy! Did you have this room arranged specifically for me?"

William shook his head with a smile. "Every room in here from the master bedrooms to the small, closet-sized ones are arranged to be as luxurious as possible. You got this room out of pure luck. Some of the other students always claim their rooms are the best, but the thing is, I always make sure they don't have access to all the other rooms."

"Why would you do that?"

"For two reasons. First, for privacy, which seems obvious, and second, for a feeling of uniqueness. If everyone saw the individual features of the other rooms, they'd get jealous and become convinced that I am giving certain students special treatment. However, I want all of you to feel equally important, so I arrange the rooms before I personally meet a student."

"Now that I think about it, that actually seems kind of nice. So, when will I meet up with all these other students? Are they all into film like me?"

"Some of them are. Others are musicians, writers, and artists like myself. In two days, you'll meet up with the actors for my next film project. As for tomorrow, we can do whatever you want."

"How does shopping and a movie with you and Georgiana sound?"

"That's great. I'm sure Gigi will love it. As for now, have this," and he handed Elizabeth a gold key. "It's for this room. Make sure no one gets a hold of it, not even me."

"Thank you so much!" she exclaimed as he left the room. He'd smiled at her and waved before leaving her alone. It seemed like a guarantee that he was going to like Elizabeth Bennet.


	4. Chapter 4

2013, Chicago: The day seemed to be approaching more quickly to Maria Torres: the day in which she and her friends, Anna Elliot and Fanny Price, were going the visit the famous New York art studio from the 1960s when it would be reopened on Black Friday. As a matter of fact, its' website's home page had "Instead of going shopping on Black Friday, visit the studio!" right on top.

It all seemed like a legend. Apparently, this studio had at one point been the center of the counterculture movement in New York City, but strangely enough, its' members didn't like to be considered as people who wanted to radically change society. Its' founder, William Darcy, considered it as simply a place where young people could find their niche in the world of fine arts, as well as a "safe haven for those who may have been rejected for being different". He obviously knew what this meant, since almost all studies done on the life of the artist showed that he had been bisexual and that this had troubled him for years, especially with the negative social attitudes on LGBT people at the time. But around 1966, when the studio had been running for two years, something changed about him, and it all seemed to be linked to his meeting Elizabeth Bennet, who had just been a rebellious middle-class young woman who wanted to get away from the conformity of the suburbs.

"You know what they're saying about the studio nowadays?" Anna asked Maria.

"What?" Maria wondered. She and her friends were all art students. Maria was studying graphic design, Anna was taking both photography and animation, and Fanny was studying the various styles of painting. The three of them were taking the trip to New York because of winning a raffle that they had in art schools all over the country just for that specific event.

" It's now owned by this new artist who use to be an independent film actor. His name is George Wickham, and according to the magazines, he looks absolutely stunning!"

Maria had never been lucky when it came to romance. It could have been her looks, since she never seemed to manage to lose more than two pounds when sticking to a diet, was lucky if her hair could look good with just a ponytail, and her mother always discouraged her to wear makeup, which she thought made her look like a clown, which was actually true. Also, she'd had to work really hard at keeping her art scholarship, since she only had her mother to give her support, considering the fact that her dad had never been in the picture. There was just never enough time for a relationship. Her friends also had little luck in this area. Anna had a great boyfriend back in high school, but her materialistic father had made her break up with him because he wasn't rich, and Fanny's only suitor had been a very obnoxious guy at their school named Henry Crawford, who only wanted to be with her because of her well-to-do aunt and uncle, who had been Fanny's guardians ever since she was ten, but had never really shown any signs of being caring or loving towards her.

If only this George Wickham had as great a personality as he did looks, could he be worthy of someone like her? As weird a thought as this was, without any further knowledge of the man, Maria almost felt as if she had a premonition of things to come.


	5. Chapter 5

**Just so you all know, the chapters will now go from past to present. Updates won't be as often as before, but it's still in progress.**

The first thing Elizabeth did when she was alone in her room was call Jane. She was currently attending a small women's college close to home, and when Elizabeth had announced to the family that she wasn't going to college, she had been shocked, thinking that she had given in to her mother's plans for an early marriage, but when she actually told her about her plans (she was the only person in the family who knew she was going to the Studio), she'd gotten very excited and told her to give her every detail about it. She asked many questions many about William Darcy ("Is he handsome?" "Is he like the hippies they talk about in the magazines?"), and Elizabeth told her as much about him as possible (eliminating the more personal details like the deaths of his parents). "So, it seems like you have no plans of returning home, Lizzie," she'd said when she was about to go. "You're right about that, but I'll certainly miss you. I hope everything goes well in college, and don't try getting on mother's bad side," Elizabeth responded. There would be no problem with this, though. Jane was a good girl who almost never got into conflicts with her parents. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had been rebelling ever since she'd discovered that there were more exciting places out there than Hartfield, New Jersey.

However, like William Darcy, Elizabeth had some secrets of her own. When she was fourteen, she started worrying that no one would ever like her for anything other than her appearance, and around this time, she had started gaining a lot of weight. As a result, whenever she ate a big meal, she would try to make herself vomit to prevent any more weight gain. This problem never really went away, and since little was known about eating disorders back then, no one could helped her even if she had said something. As of that time, she had started to prefer taking diet pills, and she had taken nearly ten pill bottles with her to New York, just in case they were too expensive there. What she did scared her sometimes, but she saw no other way around. She was going to be an actress now, and as she looked at herself in that large mirror, she wondered if she would ever be truly satisfied with her reflection. What did it matter if you were smart or had a good personality in this world? At the end, all that mattered was if men liked a woman's looks.

The next day, when Elizabeth went downstairs, she saw that she had company: an Asian girl with black hair tied in a bun wearing a blue dress and a guy with slightly long blond hair who looked more clean and dressed up than one would expect from first sight. The two of them looked really pleased to see her and introduced themselves as Charlotte Honda and Charles Bingley.

"We're going to be joining you and William today," Charlotte had said.

"Really? He didn't say anything about that yesterday," Elizabeth said.

Charles laughed and said, "He likes surprising us, especially when there are new students. If he does this, it means it's been a good week."

"And what happens during a bad week?" This was something new for her.

"It depends. Sometimes he won't say a word to you if he's not working with you. Other times, you'll barely see him at all. He'll just stay home and paint or write something for hours, according to Georgiana," Charlotte responded.

There was sure to be a word for this. Probably Bipolar Disorder. It wasn't so surprising, especially after seeing his sudden mood changes during their conversation the day before, but it was still slightly disturbing for Elizabeth. Perhaps she wasn't the only troubled person here.

"Here they are!" Charles exclaimed all of a sudden, and in came William and Georgiana Darcy, looking just as happy and carefree together as they did yesterday. Charles greeted them with hugs, while Charlotte just bowed her head and said good morning.

"Where will we go first? Tiffany's or Macy's?" Georgiana asked.

"How about we eat first, Gigi?" Darcy asked just as persuasively as she did.

Their first stop that day was at a diner near the Studio, where they had pancakes and coffee. They spend nearly an hour there, doing perhaps more talking than eating. Charles and Georgiana did most of the talking, while Charlotte would usually respond to some remark they made in a very formal way. Elizabeth later discovered that Charlotte came from a very traditional Japanese family in San Francisco, which explained some of her conservative mannerisms. She was also very spiritual, and loved talking about the virtues obtained through Buddhism and how everyone, regardless of their religion, should embrace the beauties and pleasure found through nature and living humbly. Charles, however, seemed to be a hard core liberal, and he was constantly teasing Charlotte for being too "old-fashioned". He'd dropped out of college because according to him, they were actually trying to impair their generation from actual knowledge by forcing them to take certain classes that were just useful for scholars instead of letting them choose for themselves what they wanted to learn. When Darcy tried to contradict this, he'd said, "As if you're one to speak, Will. You went to art school, while I was forced to major in business to satisfy my father." At this time, they were at Marshall's, and the conversation was going on as the women were looking through dresses.

"Not everyone is able to obtain education as easily as you did, Charlie," Will had responded.

"But not everyone who is actually gets a choice. Pretty soon, the government will probably force us into war with Vietnam because of their pathetic paranoia about communism. If we refuse, they'll treat us like renegades. What choice does our generation really have, Will? If you don't agree with the rest of them, whether it be some old professor or LBJ, you're just lost. Someone has to change things, or else we'll be no better than the Russians."

Georgiana rolled her eyes and said, "Who cares about all that political junk? My only worry about our generation is whether or not we'll dress better than those adults who think we're still in the Victorian area. Just try spending a day with our aunt Magdalena and you'll be much happier with whoever your elders are."

"Now Gigi. You know she's only thinking of our own good," Darcy said.

"Maybe so, but she dosen't have to be so strict all the time."

"If your aunt weren't strict, you might have never had proper guidance," Charlotte, always the wise one, remarked.

"If adults weren't strict, we'd probably be able to actually do something when we're still young," Elizabeth said.

"That's exactly what I think! Looks like we've finally got someone smart around here," Charles exclaimed.

"How about we just finish shopping before this turns into a political debate?" asked Darcy, who disliked discussing political and social matters as much as his sister did. "Besides, pretty soon, we'll have a film to work on."


	6. Chapter 6

**Here are two new chapters to make up for the lack of updates lately. I do not have full-time internet access right now, so I usually write at the library, but I'm now writing though my laptop when I'm at home. Enjoy and R&R. **

It was better than he thought. Who would have guessed that a bunch of social network and technology- obsessed young people would be into the art movements of the 1960s? Not that George Wickham looked down upon them, and as a matter of fact, at the age of twenty-six, he was an older member of what he called the social tech generation. He had a multimedia degree from NYU, as well as a minor in art history, which was what got him his current job as owner of that famous studio that was once inhabited by bohemians who were bored with tradition and conformity and lead by someone who actually wanted no part in that almost societal war that was taking place back then.

The history of the Studio itself was pretty interesting. It started out as a luxurious hotel that opened up in the early 1890s, and it developed a reputation as being a popular vacation spot for those who had just become rich, many of whom either got lucky with some strange invention, publication of a surprisingly successful book, or made millions out of what started out as a simple small business. It prospered for nearly forty years, becoming a popular tourist destination and visited by four US presidents, but had to be closed in the thirties as a result of the depression. However, it wasn't forgotten. The former hotel became one of the main areas of illegal activities in New York at the time, including prostitution, the selling of drugs such as opium and marijuana, and gambling, but at the same time, it attracted intellectuals who were unemployed, primarily artists and writers. Although some of them were involved with the criminal activities, their main purpose of being there was as a place to take refuge from the bleak and hopeless outside world. Some of these people were also gay, lesbian, or bisexual and produced some work that expressed their frustration and sometimes shame at having been that way, but also their growing sense of self-awareness and pride at being different. It stayed that way until after the Second World War, when the head of the New York College of Art obtained ownership of it as a place for students to obtain work experience before graduation. However, the place continued to attract intellectuals in other areas of the arts, and by 1950, it was also being used for experimental films and the publication of novels dealing with controversial themes. Knowing it would continue to be this way, NYCA finally granted official permission for people who weren't students to use what was then known as the Practical Artistic Expansion Center in 1953. For the next decade, the popularity grew, as well as certain illegal activities. Homosexuality was illegal and considered a mental illness at the time, so many those who once regarded the place as a safe haven to express their sexuality ended up being arrested or placed in mental institutions when the school became aware of them, but the drug trade still went on until 1961, when the school decided to shut down the place. This didn't last long, because several former NYCA students had taken a strong interest in the center and wanted to use it to expand their careers. William Darcy was one of them, and in 1964, when he was only twenty-five, he became the head of this center, which he renamed the Studio and used to not only expand his own artistic aspirations but also those of many young people.

George Wickham didn't consider himself to be similar to William Darcy. He'd grown up in the very middle of the middle class in Connecticut, with well-educated parents who worked as a teacher (his mother) and a computer programmer (his father) and two siblings, Amy and Brian. He had many friends in school, had his first girlfriend as a sophomore, lost his virginity as a senior, and still managed to graduate as one of the top students in both high school and college. There were never any serious issues within his family; his parents were still happily married after thirty years and Amy and Brian had gotten a good start in their careers. William Darcy, on the other hand, had grown up in a working class family of Czech origins in the lower east side of New York City. His mother had suffered from depression that had never been treated, and his father was rarely with the family, making the problem worse. She ended up committing suicide when Darcy was six, and his father had died trying to save her. After that, Darcy and his younger sister were left under the care of their mother's sister, who worked as a seamstress and was reluctant to accept certain American ways of life and ideas. However, she was devoted to her faith within the Byzantine Catholic church, which enabled her to support the children out of her sense of duty to the family. She was also into folk art, and was highly supportive of her nephew when he started showing artistic talent, and the two of them would often work on certain projects together during their spare time. When he was younger, Darcy had struggled academically because of emotional problems and difficulties with spelling and arithmetic, but after his aunt got him a dictionary in the third grade, he improved significantly. He had very few friends growing up, and had not been romantically involved with anyone for years, but had explored homosexual life during college, and seeing what happened to some of his openly gay acquaintances had forced him to keep his bisexuality a secret from most of the people he knew for years. Wickham had never had feelings of attraction towards those of the same sex, but he had some friends who did, so he understood a little about this. As to art, he had little drawing ability, but he had success when it came to web-based design, photography, and ceramics, leading him to an interest in art history in college.

So what did he think of working here since the opening of the Studio two weeks ago? For one thing, it was certainly better than his old job as a web design assistant. He got paid quite a lot, even more than his father, as a matter of fact, but the problem was that he did almost nothing. The person in charge of web design enjoyed his work so much that he almost never needed Wickham's help, so he just made him do small tasks, such as editing the content and deciding which were the best photos for the web pages, but paid him as if he did twice as much work. He'd probably spend more time playing Angry Birds and sending tweets than actually working on the computer. Here, he actually got to get up and talk to people, giving information about paintings on products and famous people as well as presenting films that hadn't been available to the public for about forty years. He also met a lot of women. Of course, the ones who were rich and beautiful were always great to escort around. Some of them actually flirted with him, asking if he was single (which he was) and if he was getting rich out of owning the studio (which he actually wasn't, although he did earn more than he ever had in his life). He would tell them that he was just a very clever businessman who got lucky. However, there was something about the women one would usually consider plain that he found striking. Especially with this one girl named Maria, an art student who was there for the opening and had talked with him after the presentation of celebrity portraits. She seemed to always to know the right thing to say without being aware of her own ability to do it. She was still around New York, and Wickham had actually agreed to meet her at a Starbucks later today. It had been almost a year since he'd been involved with a woman for non-professional reasons, and Wickham wondered if he might have a chance with her.


	7. Chapter 7

It was the middle of the night. Probably around one o'clock, but William didn't even bother to check. He had been in bed since ten o'clock, but had only slept for about half an hour. This wasn't unusual, since he'd been through insomnia almost his whole life, and something was always preventing him from having a good and long sleep. First, it had been that restless energy he had as a toddler, which he only had a few memories of now. Then it had been the painful memories of his parents' deaths, which were the worst of all those periods and one which he neither forgot nor fully recovered from. In the year following the deaths, he would sleep only after nearly three hours of crying, only to cry himself awake a while later from dreams of the exact thing he had been thinking of before sleeping. Later, other things triggered his lack of sleep: some nasty name the boys had called him which he could never find in the dictionary, meeting Lucia in the fourth grade and having his first crush on her, the first time Tom noticed him in the sixth grade and he realized that he felt something for him that he couldn't put into words, going to the Roman Catholic High School and feeling like an outsider even though he had the luck of being there with Lucia ( who was by then his closest friend), learning for the first time what it meant to be homosexual, winning a scholarship to NYCA, and so on. As for tonight, there was nothing in particular keeping him awake; he just couldn't sleep.

"Will? Are you still awake?" It was Georgiana. The door had been left ajar, so she was able to take a good look at him and realize and he was not asleep. As much as Will loved having a sister that cared a lot about him, he wished she wouldn't get so concerned over this. If he would have gotten treatment for this, it would have upset his aunt Magdalena (who did not trust psychiatrists or anyone involved in psychology), but probably have put his sister more at ease. But he didn't want to take sleeping pills, and he worried that a psychiatrist would also force him to confess his secrets, which would result in unwanted "treatments" that were both painful and humiliating, according to those who had been through them.

"I'm fine, Gigi. I just can't sleep."

She entered his room and sat on the bed. As children, they had shared a bedroom, and even though they now lived in a luxurious apartment with three bedrooms, Georgina still liked coming into his room at night, especially during those sleepless nights. "Are you sure? Have you been having nightmares or some problem on your mind that won't let you rest well?"

Will smiled at his sister. "No. There's nothing wrong. It's just one of those nights again." Georgiana sighed and put her arms around him. "What would you possibly do without me, William?"

"I'd probably go insane. I may be the oldest, Georgiana, but sometimes I think you take care of me more than I take care of you. You're always so brave, saying whatever's on your mind and actually taking risks. I usually play it safe and get too scared of upsetting others."

"Stop being such a coward. We both know you're as much of a risk taker as I am. Who else would have it in them to make paintings based on the movement for civil rights and gender equality? You get about as much praise for this as you get criticism from conservatives, if you haven't been reading the magazines and papers. And what about those movies you make? People consider them to be too controversial to be released in regular theaters! All I ever do is model and take pictures of celebrities. Just because aunt Magdalena's always criticizing me for being too rebellious dosen't mean I'm the only rebel in the family. If it had been just me and her, _I_ would have gone insane, but you're the one who always keeps the peace between us. I don't think there's anything wrong with you just because you're not as rowdy and rude as other men are. In fact, if I ever get married, I'll be sure it will be with a man just like you, because I could never imagine myself being with any other kind of man and love him as much."

Will kissed her in the cheek and hugged her back. "You never can find anything wrong with me, Gigi. I sometimes wonder if you're the only person who will ever see me that way. Why do you think I find so hard to find women?"

"Because you're too scared of being rejected and never finding another woman who will love you back, and if she likes you, you'll be afraid that she'll want to sleep with you, since you're so religious that you actually believe those Bible passages saying that anyone who has sex before marriage will go to hell for all eternity. If I were you, I'd just take it all easy, ignore aunt Magdalena and all that propaganda against sex, and just have fun with a woman for once. If I managed to do it twice without any trouble, then so can you."

Will laughed. "Well, you got part of it right. I know you're not promiscuous, but you seem to almost not care if you're doing something wrong when it comes to love and sex. I'm able to make films on that almost easily, but actually doing it makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it. Sometimes I even feel like an evil person."

"You're the last person I'd consider to be evil. If you have to, just imagine you're in one of your movies and that it's all some sort of fantasy. And if you really feel bad afterwards, just pray for an hour or go to confession. They don't really get mad about that stuff nowadays, they just give you a harder penance. Anyway, just think about it. Besides, I think Elizabeth Bennet really likes you."

"They all do. It usually doesn't mean anything except that they're just as excited as if they were meeting the Beach Boys or the Beatles. I'm not the kind of guy girls fall for that easily."

"Think again, Will. If you actually asked them, I think you'd be really surprised."

The next day was Sunday, on which there was an unusual schedule at the Studio. In those days, most public places were closed on Sundays, meaning no work. In the Studio, the first half of the day was free for everyone. William Darcy would usually go to mass with Georgiana. And every other Sunday, they'd volunteer at an orphanage, where they'd lead activities. This wasn't done to gain publicity, but rather as a personal sense of duty, since they both knew they would have ended up in one of those places if their aunt hadn't taken them in and they wanted to give back. Others had their own activities. Charlotte would mediate and pray for a whole hour before getting up to prepare breakfast (which was usually tea and oatmeal, which not everyone was willing to eat); Charles Bingley would spend all morning with whoever his current partner was, usually going out for a walk in Central Park after sleeping in; Emma Woods would spend a long time going over her clothes and then go to church when she felt she was well dressed enough; Fred Knightley would flirt with Emma, trying to get her to spend a night with, and after failing to do so, he went over his film scripts. At five o'clock, work would begin, and on evenings, everyone in the Studio would take part in a social that would usually last until midnight.

Elizabeth Bennet, being new to this routine, had breakfast with Charlotte, actually eating the breakfast she prepared and thinking it was good. There seemed to be no chance that it would make her get fat, so she didn't take a diet pill. Charlotte shared some details about her life in San Francisco, where her father had worked in construction and one of her brothers was in college studying business. She was the only daughter among four brothers, and as was Japanese tradition, her parents had always favored her brothers over her, but this had only been a small annoyance to her, since all of her brothers treated her with respect, making up for the attitudes of her parents. She'd done well in school, but wanted to try other things before making a final decision on what she wanted in life, so she'd come to the Studio a year ago. Her first film had been _A Lady's Portrait_, which had partially been a modern take on the Henry James novel, which was about a Japanese aristocrat visiting the United States for the first time, then falling in love with an American artist with erotic interests, who turns out not being the millionaire he claims to be and leaves her in disgrace after someone in her family discovers the provocative portraits the man had been working on throughout their whole relationship, which end up being published in a men's magazine. "When you first take part in William's films, it feels really strange. I was actually scared at certain points, but as strange as it may seem, I think it's William who's the most disturbed by his own creations, which sort of makes it better for the rest of us. And the films are not as bad as some of the other underground films they're making now. They have more sensuality and reflections of the feelings of lust everyone feels than actual sex. And as you'll soon see, they're probably some of the most brilliant films you'll ever take part in."

Then in walked Charles with a man who as Elizabeth looked really closely, appeared to be wearing red lipstick. Doing her best not to sound rude, she asked, "Excuse me, but are you wearing…"

"He's an actor, Elizabeth. He has to wear makeup for his latest role," Charles responded quickly.

"Don't get scared, dear. Pretty soon, you'll realize that everyone here is an eccentric," the man responded in a very feminine voice. He then shook Elizabeth's hand and said, "I'm Paul, an actor and musician and a very close friend of Charlie's."

"Hello," Elizabeth responded a little uneasily. She thought she'd heard something about people like Paul that was very negative, but she couldn't remember and didn't really want to know. Part of her reason for being here was to get to know people who didn't stick to norms, of whom she was finding many so far, which actually pleased her."

" Isn't she beautiful, Paul? Light brown hair that sort of looks blonde, brown eyes with long eyelashes, and fair skin without a single blemish. You must have had many boyfriends," Charlie said in admiration.

"I did. Thank you very much," Elizabeth responded. No need to mention that some of these relationships were a complete disaster, especially with the one who had promised to take her to prom and did the worse thing possible. Or what she had to do to keep herself beautiful. Otherwise, would they all care for her at all?

"We're all like brothers and sisters here, Elizabeth. Everyone here will love and support you no matter what," Charlotte said, almost as if she was reading her mind.

"And of course, we all love Will Darcy one way or another, since he makes all this possible," Charlie said.

"Without him, we'd have all been nobodys," Paul said.

Elizabeth smiled. She remembered that her father had told her before she left for New York that sooner or later, she would want to return home again. But with people like this, she felt as if she had already found the home where she had really belonged all along, and which she certainly would never want to leave.

**To respond to some guests' questions, Elizabeth isn't suppose to be based on anyone in particular, although I am finding inspiration in some of the people mentioned in the reviews. The next chapter will describe the film they start working on, which will be based on a story that is the equivalent of Pride and Prejudice in their world, but of course, with some changes, and then I'll go on with the usual chapter order.**

**And happy holidays to you all :)**


	8. Chapter 8

_It is a universally acknowledged truth that a single man who obtains his fortune through his own work would be in need of a suitable wife to maintain his position in respectable society._

William Darcy must have read this first line of _First Impressions _about a hundred times, and every time he did, he thanked God he had not been born in the early nineteenth century. In those days, marriage was taken way too seriously. If you married someone who wasn't within your social class, you would be considered a disgrace. And if you had an affair, it was all over for you. It had been because of how well he could connect with the story's hero, John Darcy,that William had decided to take the name Darcy as what he called his "artist name". Back when he was in high school and did drawings on his own at home, he had started signing them as William Darcy.

_First Impressions_ told the story of Isabella Price, a poor but very clever country girl who is going to become a governess for the Smiths, a wealthy family who was moving into town from London. When she and her three sisters, Anna, Katherine, and Ellen, are invited to a ball at this family's mansion, she meets John Darcy, who is rude and refuses to dance with her. She gets the impression that he is arrogant and declares him the worse man she has ever met. However, they cross paths again when Anna gets sick on the way to the Smith mansion and she and Isabella have to stay there for a week. While there, Isabella sees John Darcy walking in the garden and admiring the flowers as she is minding the Smith children. She is not able to believe that someone who seems so gentile while in solitude can act so rude in public. When he notices her, he gets really nervous and doesn't know what to say about this. Isabella simply asks him why he can't act the way he did when he thought he was alone when he had first met her, and John responds by saying that nobody likes a man with the mannerisms of a lady, which Isabella responds to by saying, "That's better than acting uncivilized." After this, certain members of the Smith family plot to end their relationship, by ways which include exposing John's former social position as a farmer's son, and they almost succeed. But then, Isabella's sister Ellen falls for a fortune hunter from John's past, who plans to elope with her. The Smiths, the Prices, and Isabella and John plan a crazy scheme to get her out of it, which involves Isabella dressing up as a man that's suppose to be Ellen's brother, who walks in during the middle of the planned elopement and objects to their being together. The idea behind this is so that none of the Smiths or John risks ruining their reputation by getting involved in the affair, and would have been improper for a woman to intervene, but many readers believed that the whole point of the scene was to show Isabella's true strength and how if she had been a man, she would have obtained a lot of influence. It was even known that the author, Cassandra Austen, was inspired by the play _As You Like It. _Isabella's "performance" goes very well, and Edward, the fortune hunter, ends up in disgrace. John, impressed by Isabella's job well done, proposes to her the night after this all happens, and the story ends with their wedding and a small account of how happy the two were with all they had.

William's new film, _Isabella and John,_ was based on this 1813 story. In this version, Isabella Price is a schoolteacher on vacation in Manhattan. She meets John (whose last name was Davis in this version) while at a masquerade ball. Because he refuses to reveal who he is long after the dance, Isabella is lead to despise him and reveals how she feels through profanities. A week later, he accidentally walks into her hotel room while she is sleeping (there was actually a scene similar to this in the book), and he is astonished by her peaceful manner. When Isabella wakes up, she is horrified at first, but then she becomes mesmerized by John's now romantic behavior towards her, and she believes she might be in love. Their romance evolves more quickly than it did in the book, and those threatening to break them up use methods that are twice more harmful than the original ones. Isabella's sister, Ellen, comes to the hotel in the middle of all this chaos and ends up falling for a nearly perverted Edward. But in this version, John dresses as Ellen on their elopement day and acts extremely reluctant to say I do. After that, Isabella walks in as Ellen's brother and beats Edward. She is threatened with arrest, but Ellen ends up saving the day by declaring that she's found out who Edward really is and no longer wishes to elope. It ends with Isabella and John's wedding and their plans to see the world and then settle in the countryside to start a family. The script was all set, but William always ended up changing it because he let his students make suggestions on how to improve things. He encouraged them to go beyond the script and add as much of their true personalities into their characters as possible. So far, certain roles were already determined. Paul Johnson would be playing John Davis, Charlotte Honda was Susan Baker, Isabella's friend and travelling companion, and Emma Woods and Fred Knightley were the Smiths. He was still thinking about who would be right for the other parts, especially for Isabella Price. But as of now, he was pretty sure that he could see Elizabeth Bennet playing that character perfectly well. It suited her personality, as she was just as clever, outspoken, and optimistic as Isabella was. All he had to do was see how well Elizabeth would act her out in the "auditions", or random script readings, and most likely, the part would be hers.

"I already have an objection," Charles Bingley spoke up after having skimmed through the whole script.

"What is it, Charlie?" William asked, already knowing what it would be.

"How come you always want to make adaptations of these so-called classics from the nineteenth century? They have no relevance at all to today's world, and everyone knows that those Victorian era idiots just wrote about an ideal world where everyone was so philosophical and romantic and ran off with those of inferior social status. All that crap was just to enforce upper class values without a second thought about everyone else in society."

"Well, I think it's beautiful, William," Charlotte said, giving Charlie a disapproving look. "Just because Charles can't appreciate the classics doesn't mean the rest of us don't."

"Yeah. It might even be your best film yet," Emma remarked.

"What about you, Elizabeth? Do you like it?" William asked hopefully.

"I don't like it; I _love_ it! And I think you already know who's perfect for the part of Isabella Price."

"And who would that be?"

"Me. I played Juliet in high school and I was praised by everyone, as I wrote in that letter to you. I also had three other leads in school productions and they were all better as I proceeded. Of course, if someone else wants the role, they're welcome to have it." No one volunteered, all convinced that Elizabeth would be perfect, and as she read the masquerade ball scene, she proved that she was. It really did sound as if she were angry with some impudent man, as though she may have experienced something like that before. Within five minutes, William gave her the part.

"I have one suggestion to make first," She demanded.

"Tell us about it."

"See the heart- shaped gold necklace you bought me at Tiffany's yesterday?" She asked, fingering through it around her neck as she spoke. "I want to be wearing it in the part where John Davis walks in on me sleeping."

"Sure. We can go along with that. It would make the scene even more beautiful."

When he said this, Elizabeth smiled in a way that seemed seductive and said, "And by that, I mean I want to be wearing nothing but this necklace."

**Read and review!**


	9. Chapter 9

It was astonishing how much your life could change in just a couple of weeks. Here Maria was, sitting in an elegant restaurant in New York, waiting for George Wickham. He must have been the most charming man she had ever met. All she'd done was ask a simple question about a portrait and a week later, they'd already formed an acquaintance. He wasn't as friendly as some of the guys in art school, but for Maria, this was actually better. It meant that he respected her and was candid, unlike Fanny's ex, who would always talk in this terribly sweet tone to people when he thought someone was stupid. If things went on like this for the rest of her vacation here, who knew if they could actually become a couple?

A few minutes after she arrived, in walked a middle-aged yet very beautiful woman with shoulder-length, brownish blonde hair, a lean figure, and blue eyes. She smiled at Maria and without a word, just sat next to her on the table.

"Hi. Did you reserve this table ahead of time?" Maria asked a little timidly.

"No dear. I'm well-known here, so I can pretty much sit wherever I want to," the woman responded. Then, noticing how confused Maria looked, she realized she didn't know who she was and began explaining: "I'm sorry. I forget that I haven't met all of George's friends. My name's Marilyn and I taught art history for a while at a private school here in New York. George and I had a rather close relationship when he was at NYU." She then shook hands with Maria.

"I'm Maria and I'm an art student in Chicago. I came to New York for the opening of the Studio."

"Oh yes! William Darcy's famous studio from the sixties. Some people thought it had just disappeared, but NYCA kept it well in the last couple decades. I always knew George would make a good businessman in the area of the arts. Computers were never really his thing."

"Would you mind if I asked you what kind of relationship you had with George?" This woman must have been twice his age, and George didn't seem like the kind of person who would have affairs with older women.

Once again, Marilyn smiled. "Nothing inappropriate went on between us. I knew that George had a lot of commitments at NYU and I was teaching, so we couldn't afford to get into something like that. Also, I promised myself when I was young that I wouldn't make the mistakes my own parents made."

"What do you mean?"

"I was born out of the wedlock, which was bad enough back in the late sixties, but there was also the fact that my parents had a rather unorthodox relationship. I don't want to get too much into it, but I've always had morals when it comes to my relationships. If a man doesn't want to get involved sexually, then I respect their decision, which was exactly what went on between me and George. I was his girlfriend for a while, but that was it."

"Have you ever been married by a chance?"

Marilyn laughed. "No Maria. I just never met a man I believed I could spend the rest of my life with. But I'm never lonely. I have many friends and am probably one of the few people who had three careers in her lifetime and was satisfied with them all: artist, musician, and teacher."

"Why so much careers?" Maria asked. This woman seemed fascinating.

But before they could go on, George Wickham walked in. She greeted Maria and Marilyn warmly and actually kissed them both. Neither minded, and by the end of their meal, they agreed to meet in George's apartment for a while. As the three of them rode in a cab together, Maria wondered if her trip could get anymore interesting.


End file.
